the moon's warmth
by a sweet madness
Summary: all she ever wanted was all he could never give her. 1sentence for the LJ community. sasuke x sakura.


My shadow said to me:  
what is the matter

Isn't the moon warm  
enough for you  
why do you need  
the blanket of another body

Whose kiss is moss

- The Shadow Voice by Margaret Atwood

#35 – Fever  
She is eleven and in love, and when she can't find her wallet and Naruto tells her he's broke, Sasuke begrudgingly throws some money down on the Ichiraku counter, and she lights up; it could almost be called a date, she thinks, if only Naruto weren't here.

#46 - Gravity  
He almost never smiles, but he's secretly glad that she does enough for both of them; he'd do anything to keep her smiling, forever and ever – anything but stay, that is.

#39 – Overwhelmed  
Sakura spends the first day he's gone locked up in her own room, refusing to eat or talk or even move, for fear that if she takes even one step, she'll find herself sprinting towards Sound before she can stop herself.

#43 - Search  
One day, Kiba sees her sitting on a cold stone bench and looking imploringly and half-desperately down at her fingers, like she somehow expects to find an answer in the spaces between them; he thinks she's the prettiest lost cause he's ever seen.

#09 – Red  
Under Tsunade, Shizune, and Ton-Ton's watchful eyes, she trains until her knuckles bleed and she keeps her hair short and she refuses to stop until she has the power to accomplish all she couldn't when she was young and stupid; Tsunade doesn't know how to tell her that no matter how many trees she obliterates or craters she punches, none of it will help her fight off her own demons [she has to do that on her own, without help from chakra or poisons].

#02 - Hero  
Kiba finds her standing at the very edge of a cliff, hair wild and clothes torn by the nearby brambles, tears threatening to spill from those apple-green eyes, so he takes off his shirt and slips it over her head [the hem just brushes her mid-thigh] and rubs her back and tells her "it's okay" until it actually is.

#29 – Dance  
He spins her around the dance floor, and when he dips her, over-exaggerated and jokingly suave in a way only he can pull off, she laughs; she doesn't think she's ever felt so free before.

#32 - Farewells  
Two years after Sasuke leaves, she puts the picture of Team Seven face down on her desk, hides it behind her table lamp and some clutter, and begins wearing the necklace Kiba gave her for her birthday, because she knows that this is how you let go – you force yourself to give away the pieces that made up who "we" were, and you watch them drift away and you don't say anything, and you stop yourself from reaching out and grabbing it right back and clutching it to your heart forevermore, because you can't forget something if it's still right in front of you, and you can't live on memories alone [she would know – she tried].

#49 – Lock  
Kiba is everything Sasuke isn't – in a word, here; in more, messy, affectionate, unpredictable– but what she doesn't tell anyone is that for a really long time, he is the glue that holds her together.

#45 - Eclipse  
She never tells anyone, but she always knew that Kiba thought what they had was just a temporary distraction, a fling until Sasuke came back; she never told Kiba, but she thought he was wrong.

#40 – Whisper  
One day, out of the blue, Naruto brings Sasuke back to Konoha, dragging him through the gates with as sunny a smile as ever, like he hasn't just caught her biggest weakness and sat him down in front of her, practically wrapped with a bow and a tag saying "Open me, when you know you shouldn't, because you can't ever resist when it comes to me"; she doesn't know how to react, so she just smiles at Naruto and slips quietly away, and as usual, Sasuke doesn't notice a thing (or if he does, he never says anything, only stares and stares, and it's finally not enough for Sakura anymore that he's looking at her, because he still never really sees her).

#30 - Body  
Sasuke's only been back for a day when Kiba breaks up with her because he thinks she's going to run right back to her "Sasuke-kun," and it makes her so angry that she steals Tsnuade's mission assignment book, reassigns all missions that will take Kiba out of the village to other shinobi, and then promptly embarks on her own mission of flirting with every available male in his immediate vicinity who isn't Sasuke, all while wearing short skirts and low-cut shirts.

#05 – Run  
She's not proud of how much she cared that he left when he promised he never would.

#47 – Highway  
While Sasuke waits for the elders and Tsunade to agree on what to do with him, Sakura takes the first mission out of Konoha, because she knows that the elders will want her to testify, and she doesn't know what she would say, doesn't even know if she wants him in Konoha anymore; she drags Naruto along with her, because although she knows Sasuke will need Naruto there to protect him and vouch for him and fight for him [the way he never fought for them], a small vindictive part of her thinks that she deserves him more.

#12 – Temptation  
Her hair is soaking wet and in her face and plastered to her neck, her clothes clinging to her body, her skin pale and luminescent in the darkness; she is shivering and glaring at him, but Naruto thinks she's never looked more beautiful [he doesn't know how to stop loving her].

#36 - Laugh  
No one ever knows, but for a while when Naruto was off training with Jiraiya to bring Sasuke back, she'd lie on her back on top of Hokage Mountain, and if she closed her eyes, she could sometimes believe he was right next her; if she tried hard enough, she could sometimes hear his laugh in the wind.

#38 – Forever  
"Tell me a secret," she commands Naruto; "I still love you," he confesses.

#23 – Fire  
The first time she gets angry at Sasuke instead of wanting to cry is when he comes back and ignores her [she is just so tired of this routine – she's danced it a thousand million times, and each time, it only ends in tears]; the look of utter shock on his face when she punches him, screams "asshole!" at him, and then refuses to talk to him for two weeks makes her wonder why she didn't grow a spine earlier.

#26 – Ice  
They are on a mission in the Land of Mist in December when he asks her for a second chance, and she says yes, but only because she's tired [she's been angry for so long].

#22 – Journey  
Team Seven's first time eating dinner together is awkward and not at all like anyone remembered, and there are tensions and not-so-secret grudges held over the years all around the table, but Naruto lays his laughter over them all like a blanket and Sakura chatters away and all of it is fake fake fake and everyone knows it, but Sasuke and Kakashi play along anyway, because they've all waited too long for this to not even try.

#21 – Silence  
He never lays a hand on her, but his silence cuts her 'til she bleeds tears, and she knows Kakashi told her she'd need to go slow with him – "baby steps," he'd said – but she doesn't know how much more of herself she can give to him until there's no more of her left, just smoke and the memory of a girl who always tried too hard.

#48 – Unknown  
"You don't know me," she screams at him, "so stop acting like we're still twelve and you can tell me what to do and I'll listen. You gave up that right a long time ago, Sasuke."

#33 – World  
He doesn't say anything back, not because that's the classic Sasuke response to anything and everything, but because he knows she's right, and he doesn't know what to say to her to make her look at him the way she used to.

#11 – Midnight  
He presses it in her hands as she passes, and when she looks down, she's surprised to see that only one word – "midnight" – is printed carefully on the scrap of paper [she doesn't want to feel hopeful, because he's only ever disappointed her].

#17 – Promise  
He knows they can't start over, can't pretend he never hurt her or made her cry or left her behind when all she'd ever asked was for him to stay, and he can't even promise he won't hurt her again, because he doesn't like to make promises he can't keep and she always always ends up in his crossfires; he knows he shouldn't even be allowed to ask for a second chance with her, but he does anyway [because he knows she'll say yes, and he's too selfish to let her go].

#20 – Talent  
When she was younger, Sakura would take the smallest action and analyze it until there was nothing left to interpret, no detail left to agonize over; nowadays, she makes up for that by not seeing meaning in anything Sasuke does for her.

#13 - View  
She has her doubts, but she meets him on the rooftop when the clock strikes twelve like he requested, and is stunned by the sight of Sasuke shaking out a blanket and setting it down next to two stacked bento boxes; she thinks she'd feel like a princess if he ever played the part of a Prince Charming.

#18 – Dreams  
The stars are out and twinkling, and she knows that shooting stars are only massive balls of dust and gas and can't actually grant wishes, but she closes her eyes and makes a wish anyway [she wishes that he'll find happiness, and he wishes that he can somehow make up for all that he has done wrong by her].

#19 – Candle  
Their second date is a candlelit dinner, and when Sasuke sends her flowers the next day, Sakura knows that this is not Sasuke, none of this is Sasuke, so she goes to Sai and asks him if he's been planning all their dates, and she finds that she's disappointed when he admits that he has indeed been telling Sasuke all the right things to do and say, all the right places to be at all the right times, even suggested the flowers; she knew it was too perfect to be real, too by-the-book to be realistic, and she'd expected this answer anyway, but it still feels like she's fallen in love with a lie all over again.

#08 – Cold  
The first time they kiss, Sakura can't get over how warm he is [she can practically feel his hands burning their imprints into her skin], but she reminds herself that even monsters can have beautiful faces.

#34 – Formal  
She makes herself pretty, with silky smooth hair and flawless skin and the most princess-like dress she can find, but he doesn't come to Hinata's eighteenth birthday party, and that night is the first time in years she cries in front of Ino, hiccupping in between her declarations that he'd promised he'd show up; she'd told him to come if he wanted to try being something real with her.

#42 - Talk  
Four days later, he sends her flowers and a note with nothing on it but " – Sasuke," and she stuffs them into the garbage and then ties the bag up and takes it out before she can change her mind; a week after that, he says hi to her when she's waiting to pay at the grocery store, and she caves.

#50 – Breathe  
She takes him back, and when they're getting lunch together the next day, she finally feels like she can breathe again [she hates herself a little for needing him so much].

#37 – Lies  
She knows his promises are empty and his kisses lies but she takes them anyway, because she's waited so long for them it'd be stupid not to, and call her what you will [foolish, impulsive, hot-headed], but Sakura is not stupid.

#04 – Box  
He brings out a small velvet box, and they both know what is in it and everything it means – there are no surprises in this relationship, and both of them knew exactly where this was headed from the beginning – but still, Sakura can't completely hide her dismay and reluctance, and she doesn't even care how much it will sting Sasuke that she's not stumbling over herself to say yes; "You got what you wanted," she thinks later on after he's left, and if she could ever hate Sasuke as much as she loved him, she'd be bitter, because Sasuke always got exactly what he wanted.

#31 – Sacred  
To her, marriage is a sacred thing, meant for two people madly and deeply in love who want to commit their lives to making each other happy, but she gives it all up for him; she learned long ago that very little in life is actually fair, and she wonders if that makes it okay that their relationship is so unbalanced.

#14 – Music  
The first time Sasuke kisses her in public, it is only for a split second, and then he is gone, but she comes into the hospital that morning humming and unable to stop grinning, even when Tsunade teases her about it; Naruto is glad, he supposes, that she is so happy with him, and for the millionth time, he smiles back at her and ignores the little voice in his head that asks him why she didn't pick him to be her hero, why she couldn't ever see how perfect they could've been together.

#15 – Silk  
Their bedsheets are made of silk, luxurious but always cool to the touch and altogether just don't ever feel natural, and within a month, Sakura decides that they have to go, so the moment Sasuke gets home after his next mission, she presents him with cotton sheets covered with bright red tomatoes set against a navy blue background; "A compromise," she explains happily, "because I like cotton and you like tomatoes," and Sasuke can't quite bring himself to tell her just how ridiculous she is so he just rolls his eyes at her and mutters "Fine" [because she's Sakura, and he's always been bad at saying no to her].

#03 – Memory  
Two months after the wedding, Ino sits Sakura down and asks her, the most serious anyone's ever seen Ino, if she's really happy with Sasuke, and Sakura tells her, just as seriously, that life with Sasuke isn't happy, per se, but it's all she's ever wanted and the moments that shine, the moments between the lines, that are blurry and not-quite-clear – well, they're beautiful.

#25 - Mask  
He has only ever strayed once – with a girl on a mission to Sound – and he doesn't know she knows; it breaks her up into a million little pieces, but she welcomes him home the next day the same as she always has, and he never finds out just how much it kills her that she's not enough for him.

#28 – Forgotten  
The first night of his next mission, she casts a transformation jutsu on herself, coloring her hair and eyes brown, and sleeps with a perfectly ordinary shinobi from the next town over who honestly believed her name was Mizuki.

#01 - Ring  
That night, when she comes back, she takes the ring off her finger and wears it as a necklace she hides under her shirt – she doesn't see why she should continue looking like she's married when she barely feels it.

#27 - Fall  
When Sasuke comes home two days later, gives her a nod and what could only be called a grimace, and disappears into the shower, she stops herself from crying because she knows he'd hear, so she bites her lip 'til it bleeds and digs her fingernails into her palms until four neat little half-moons are engraved onto her palms; if you asked her, she'd swear she could feel this marriage falling apart at the seams.

#10 – Drink  
She doesn't drink with Naruto anymore, because although she can hold her liquor, she still worries that she might let something slip, and she knows that if Naruto knew how unhappy she really was, he'd take her away from Sasuke, consequences be damned; she just doesn't know if she's ready to make that choice just yet [and if she thinks about it, this is the way it's always been – her happiness or Sasuke, and goddamnit, why can't he ever make this easy for her].

#06 – Hurricane  
She is huddled into herself at the trunk of the tree, sobs wracking her thin body, and her hair hangs in a curtain so no one can see the tear tracks on her face; he braves the rain and treks out to where she is [in the middle of the damn forest, of course], drapes a blanket over her shoulders, and opens up an umbrella.

#41 – Wait  
He doesn't ask her why she's crying – that's not Sasuke's style – but he stands guard over her trembling form until she stops crying, and then takes her hand and leads her back to Konoha.

#16 – Cover  
He may not love her the way she loved him, but he takes care of her the only way he knows how.

#24 – Strength  
She can't let him go, won't move on, and she doesn't know if this means she's the stronger one in their relationship or just stubborn.

#07 – Wings  
Everyone thinks staying with Sasuke clips her wings and keeps her caged in [and sometimes, she thinks they're right], but she thinks it might be worth it when he tells her "I love you" in the half-dusky darkness of their dining room one night; the matter-of-fact way he says it is so Sasuke it nearly makes her cry.

#44 – Hope  
They are Sasuke and Sakura, Sakura and Sasuke – nothing more and nothing less – and they are not necessarily happy or perfect or unbreakable, but they are something, and they are together, and all they want is to find their salvation in each other.


End file.
